Head of Red Hat: a third of world IT expenses are money "on wind"

Why IT do not become cheaper, and is more expensive - a question which was raised by Jim Whitehurst, the president and the CEO of Red Hat, during network broadcasting in Interop.

Power of processors and capacity of storages, according to Moore and Kryder laws, double each one and a half years, and Gilder law says that the capacity of network should double each half a year. Growth of these performance indicators should come to compliance with economy indicators. But it not so, tells Uaytkhyorst. "The functionality should be explosive, and expenses should fall - and being CIO, you should be a rock star and be present on the golf course at three o'clock", - he joked.

According to him, IT vendors "fleece" the companies. The old delivery pattern of software products and technologies to clients is destroyed in principle, and it explains the reasons of failures in IT projects, virus intsendenta, and the fact that the software and hardware of the companies "develop" a five-year cycle of a product though many of them are never used.

By its conservative estimates, from $1.4 trillion in world the IT budget, at least $500 billion are wasted absolutely. "And irretrievable losses for society are much higher", tells Uaytkhyorst – possibly, something about $3.5 trillion. These expenses are taken into account as wave effect". It should be noted, however, that these expenses provide $500 billion cost of jobs and multiplicative effect.

Problem is also that vendors try to predict future for many years, and prepare the products for updating "Big Bang" in far in the future. It sharply contrasts with iterative and more modest cycle of product providers with the open code and Internet-applications.

Uaytkhyorst compares iterative models about Kaizen. It is the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement of business which leads to clean and economic technologies in production, for the first time it was developed in Toyota company. Its essence that you work at a lean factory in small groups, you transfer drawings up and down a supply chain, gradually changing products and gradually improving it. It leads to reduction of defects of production.

The kaizen the-like development approach of the software realized in projects with open codes (and also in services, such as Salesforce.com) gives lower level of defects in the software, than products of "Big Bang". Uaytkhyorst emphasized: it can show that thanks to model of an open source code, own efforts of Red Hat in the field of development gave 10 times less defects in code lines, than as a result of efforts of preparation of "Big Bang".

According to Kaizen there is still an element of aggressive cost reduction which Uaytkhyorst does not mention. Nevertheless, he noted when Delta Airline was in a bankruptcy status, at that time he was CIO in the company and IT department was the place where it was almost impossible to cut down expenses because of the nature of products, licensing and contracts of support with vendors.

The sellers understanding real problems of the information technology industry have chance to radically transform IT during the "cloud" revolution, told Uaytkhyorst. According to its assumption, the changes happening in IT (as we pass to virtual infrastructure which is developed around DPC and breaks on other "clouds") seem as conversions upon transition from mainframes to distributed systems.

"On it decades of work so it is a long, long working shift will leave", - considers Uaytkhyorst. He emphasized that it is necessary to put pressure upon suppliers of IT, referring to revolutions of personal minicomputers in 1970th and 1980th and, as a result - Unix revolutions in 1980th and 1990th.

To receive the correct "cloud" revolution and to cut down expenses on IT, such companies as Red Hat, should be beyond use of the open code and provide the good software of infrastructure, declared Uaytkhyorst. They actually should involve customers in process as the Kaizen introduces parts of suppliers and clients in a cycle of preparation of a product.